Texas Rebels: Egan

by Linda Warren

  The sketch pad caught her attention and she picked it up from the bed. Suddenly, she had to see Egan even if he didn’t want to see her. Her phone was charging on her desk and she went to it. With a little searching, she found the location of Rebel Ranch. It was on the other side of Horseshoe and she could be there in probably fifteen minutes. She grabbed her purse, stuck her phone inside and crept out of the bedroom.

  Tiptoeing down the stairs, she prayed no one would hear her. Though the house was dark, she found her way easily. It took a moment to locate the Mustang key on the rack, but soon she was out the door.

  She had one problem, however. She had no idea where the Mustang was. After all these years, it could be anywhere. The garage was the logical place. It was connected to the house by a breezeway. Flipping on the light, she saw four vehicles: Angie’s Suburban, Hardy’s truck, her dad’s truck and her Mustang. Oh, yes.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, Rachel felt a bubble of excitement run through her. The feel of the red leather was sinful and the Mustang purred to life with a well-remembered ease, making her feel young, adventurous, even gutsy. She was reaching out to Egan and praying it wasn’t a wrong decision. One she wouldn’t regret later.

  Chapter Ten

  Egan was bone-tired and every muscle in his body ached. Working a fourteen-hour day was rough. That was a cowboy’s life, though. They’d vaccinated, tagged and branded fifty-two calves, plus castrated those that needed to be. It had been a full day in the saddle and he was ready for a shower, some food and bed.

  He rubbed Gypsy down. “You did good today, girl.” The horse was sweaty and tired, too.

  Pete barked.

  “You did good, too.” He reached into the pocket of his duster and handed the dog some beef jerky. Pete gobbled away, happy.

  Grandpa ambled into the barn, chewing on a toothpick. “Hey, boy, where is everybody?”

  Everybody had worked today, but now the ranch was quiet. “Falcon and Jude had something at school for Eden and Zane. Mom went with them and they’re having dinner out. Quincy drove to Plano to check out a couple of paint horses. Jericho’s in the bunkhouse, probably asleep by now, and Elias went down to Rowdy’s for a beer. Someone will probably have to bail him out of jail in the morning.”

  Grandpa eased onto a bale of alfalfa. “That boy never met a man he didn’t wanna fight.”

  The brothers all dealt with their father’s death in different ways. Elias’s was fighting.

  “Seven grandsons and none of you have a wife. Now isn’t that a sad state of affairs.”

  “Depends on how you look at it. It’s not that we don’t like women. We just haven’t found one we want to spend the rest of our lives with.” Gypsy shook her head, ready for the bridle to come off.

  “Did I tell you about the first time I fell in love?”

  Egan groaned inwardly. Not another story. He was too tired to listen. He made long strokes down Gypsy’s wet back and didn’t answer, hoping Grandpa’s attention would veer in another direction. He gave it a nudge.

  “Wasn’t Grandma the first woman you fell in love with?”

  “Who’s telling this story?”

  Egan shrugged and gave in to the inevitable.

  “I was about sixteen when I met Wilhelmina Stugginhouser...”

  “You made that up.”

  Grandpa winked at him. “I kid you not. That was her name. She had red hair and green eyes and was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Of course, I was sixteen and hadn’t seen too many. But she was a beauty.”

  Egan laid the brush down with a sigh. He was in for a long evening.

  “She was about sixteen, too, I think, and she had eyes for me. We held hands and did a little kissy face. Back then, people married young and we wanted to tie the knot. We knew our parents wouldn’t allow it so we decided to run away. Neither of us had a vehicle so we planned to walk to Temple to a justice of the peace. That woman complained about everything from her sore feet to the weather to my sour attitude. About three miles later I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to listen to that nagging woman for the rest of my life no matter how beautiful she was. About that time she came to the same decision. So we walked home and never spoke to each other again.”

  Egan leaned on the horse stall. “Does this story have a point?”

  “Yeah, you need to find a wife and stop spending so much time alone.”

  “But I should walk three miles with her first?”

  “What?” Grandpa’s eyebrows knotted together like an old rope.

  “The story. Isn’t that what it meant?”

  His grandfather pushed himself to his feet. “You’re not gonna find a woman out there on the ranch. You should’ve gone into town with Elias and looked around. They don’t have to be beautiful—that’s what I was trying to say. Those beautiful ones are hard to get along with. Just start looking. You’re not getting any younger. None of you boys are and I’m getting tired of making this speech.”

  If it made sense, it might be easier for them to understand. Grandpa had his own ideas and Egan and his brothers listened out of respect.

  “I’m going to the house to eat the pizza that Cupcake left me and then I’m getting some shut-eye.” His grandfather shuffled out of the barn, and somewhere in Egan’s mind there was a voice that said he had met a woman on the ranch. She just turned out to be the wrong woman.

  He removed the bridle from Gypsy and hung it on the wall. The horse trotted out into the corral to eat sweet feed. Egan’s chaps were beginning to bother him, so he removed the duster and undid them. Laying the chaps on a rail in his spot of the barn, he froze. In the doorway stood a woman.

  Rachel.

  Pete barked at her. She backed away in fear.

  “Down,” Egan shouted, and Pete immediately sat on his haunches, staring at Rachel, just as Egan was.

  Her long blond hair was loose and hung over her shoulders in glossy, tempting tresses, framing her beautiful face. Much different than the last time he’d seen her. Short white pants and a pink top clung to her curvy, feminine body. Pink sparkly sandals adorned her feet, a perfect match. The realization bounced crazily in his head.

  From the sane part of his brain, he gathered his wits. “What are you doing here?”

  She glanced at Pete and took a couple steps around him. “I...I wanted to talk to you.”

  “We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

  “Well, then, you can just listen.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  She continued around Pete until she was about six feet from Egan. “I’m sorry you had to spend another night in jail.”

  “I know, Rachel. You didn’t have to make a trip out here to tell me that.”

  Pete laid his head on his front paws and whimpered.

  Rachel glanced nervously at him. “Is he...?”

  “He’s harmless. He won’t hurt you.”

  “I’m wary of dogs now.”

  Egan’s eyes went to her face and arms, and he noticed that the scrapes were healing nicely. It was the fear in her eyes that was getting to him. He cleared his throat. “That will pass.”

  “Could we talk just for a minute?”

  He heard the entreaty in her voice and he had to be strong. Talking would solve nothing. How many times did he have to tell her that?

  “I told my family my deep dark secret and turns out my father thinks I’m silly.”

  “What?” The word slipped out before Egan could stop it. He didn’t want to know anything else about her life.

  “My parents had a last-minute dinner date planned for the Saturday after my mom died, and she went shopping for an outfit for the occasion. While she was out, she picked up my dress. I wasn’t the reason she went to the mall, and my father thinks it’s ludicrous that I would think such a thing. Twelve years of guilt and it meant nothing to my dad. Twelve years of trying to live with it also meant nothing to him. I’m having a hard time adjusting to that. I feel as if no one understands
how I felt at the time, or how I feel now.”

  How awful that must have been for her. Egan hadn’t thought he could hate Judge Hollister any more than he did, but at that moment he harbored a new kind of hatred. What kind of person would do that to his own daughter? The worst kind. The man was an insensitive narcissist who thought the world revolved around him.

  Rachel’s eyes were huge and she was expecting Egan to say something to alleviate her pain. As he had so many times in the past few days, he repeated the words inside his head: do not get involved. It was his mantra, but seeing the sadness on her face, he found it took all his strength to remember that.

  Loud howls echoed across the landscape, interrupting his thoughts. The horses in the corral neighed agitatedly. Pete barked.

  Rachel moved closer to him. “What is that?”

  “Sounds like a pack of wolves. We castrated bull calves today and they smell blood and are hungry.”

  “Are they close?”

  “Too close for my peace of mind. I have to shut the barn doors before the horses come charging in.”

  As the words left his mouth, two fillies bounded inside, knocking Rachel against a post and galloping out the other barn door, looking for safety. Egan caught her before she fell to the ground, and sat her on a bale of hay.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “Wait here.” He closed the doors before any more horses could bolt through. Grabbing his rifle from the stall, he said, “I’ll be firing my gun to scare the wolves off, so don’t be afraid. Come on, Pete. We have to get those horses back.”

  Before he pulled the other doors closed, he glanced at her one more time. Her arms were folded across her chest, as if to protect herself. She looked lost and lonely, and his heart contracted.

  He slammed the door behind him.

  Why did she have to walk into his life?

  Again.

  * * *

  RACHEL TREMBLED FROM head to toe, trying not to relive that moment in the hills when the dogs had attacked her. She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, and looked around the barn. It was big. Stables were on the right, across from a full wall of tack. On the left side were hay bales and an open space that looked as if it held supplies. The smell of alfalfa filled her nostrils. The dirt on the floor was soft, like sawdust. To her dismay, it coated her sandals.

  The howls erupted again and she forgot about her shoes. She jumped as three loud gunshots followed. The pounding of hooves sounded and a dog yapped. Then there was silence.

  The barn door slid open and Egan and the dog came in. In faded Wranglers and a chambray shirt, he took her breath away. The clothes molded to his lean muscles and emphasized his strength. His boots were dusty and worn, and his hat was pulled low over his eyes. His five-o’clock shadow was sexy as hell. The whole package bespoke a hardworking cowboy. But he was a man who had stolen her heart. She couldn’t explain how it had happened so quickly. She only knew it was true.

  He propped his gun against a stall. “That should take care of that problem. Gunfire usually scares them away.” He sat beside her on the bale and she wanted to lay her head on his shoulder, feel his strength and let him ease all the pain she was feeling.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  She glanced down at her left arm and saw a scrape on her skin where she’d hit the post. Blood trickled down to her elbow. Egan whipped out his handkerchief and dabbed at it, and she remembered the last time he’d used his handkerchief to treat her wounds.

  “You should have said something.”

  “The wolves, the horses and the gunfire kind of had my full attention.”

  He held her arm and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. “I need to clean this.”

  “It’s fine,” she replied. “It’s just a scratch.”

  He stood. “Come on, let’s go to my house and I’ll fix it up. This time it’s my fault you’re hurt.”

  As she got to her feet, she realized her legs were shaking, but she managed to steady herself. “You have a house?”

  “I share one with my brothers Elias and Quincy, but they’re out for the evening.”

  He took her elbow and guided her out of the barn, flipping the lights off as they went. Total darkness engulfed them, but she wasn’t afraid. She was with Egan and she wasn’t going to complain. Any time with him she would take. The dog followed as they walked through the moonlight.

  “I noticed a lot of houses.”

  “There are a lot of us Rebels,” he answered. “My mom, Falcon and his daughter, Jude, and his son live in the big house you passed on the way to the barn. I live in the house I grew up in, and my grandpa’s house is not far from it. The bunkhouse is over by the barn.”

  They came to a chain-link fence and Egan opened the gate. She couldn’t see much as she stepped up onto a porch. He opened the front door and they went inside. She slipped off her dusty sandals there.

  The bright lights blinded her for a second. When her eyes adjusted, she realized it was a log house—a big log house. A brown leather sectional sofa with two recliners faced a big-screen TV. Another recliner sat beside it and a coffee table stood in the center of the room. Other than that, the space was bare. Through a large archway, a huge kitchen beckoned. The cabinets were a rich pine grain and the countertops were tiled in white and trimmed with hunter green. A long bar with four stools faced the cooking area. The floors had the same rich pine grain. Again, everything was plain, no-frills, with no pictures, no flowers. This was a bachelor pad.

  He led her into the kitchen and she slid onto a leather barstool. From one of the cabinets he pulled out a first-aid kit. Within minutes he had cleaned the scratch and put antiseptic cream on it. He then covered it with a Band-Aid.

  Unable to resist, she removed his hat, and Egan drew back, startled.

  “I can’t see your face.”

  He leaned on the bar with a twinkle in his eyes. “I think we’ve had this conversation before.”

  She met his glance with a twinkle of her own. “I believe we have.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asked suddenly.

  “Uh...” She had already eaten, but if it meant she could spend more time with him, then she would lie.

  “First, I really need to shower. I have manure, blood, sweat and no telling what else on my clothes. I’ll be a few minutes.” He disappeared down a hallway.

  Sitting there in his home, Rachel had a warm, surreal moment. He wasn’t pushing her away and she was happy about that. Walking into the living room, she thought she would like to hang paintings on the walls—paintings of horses, and maybe even cattle. It would fit this rustic home.

  The dog whimpered at the door and then scratched at the screen. She didn’t know what to do. Maybe he wanted inside. She’d let Egan do that, but the animal kept at it. Egan had said the dog was harmless, and she had to face her fears. She could do this. Walking to the door, she told herself that over and over. But in her mind was a horrible memory of dogs attacking, clawing and biting.

  Staring down at the motley-colored ranch dog, she sucked air into her lungs and pushed the door open. The dog shot inside and trotted to the kitchen. When he didn’t find Egan, he trotted back to her and barked.

  “What?” she asked.

  He barked again and kept barking.

  “I don’t know what you want.”

  “You don’t talk Dog?” Egan asked from the doorway. He was fresh from the shower in jeans and a white T-shirt. Rubbing his hair with a towel, he said, “Pete’s hungry. He wants food.”

  Rachel couldn’t speak. She was too aware of how her body was reacting to Egan’s potent maleness. Raw, primal needs ached inside her and she wanted to touch the roughness of his jaw, caress his broad shoulders and run her hands through his hair. Plus do a lot of other things with him. She’d dated. She’d had two serious boyfriends, so she wasn’t a naive teenager anymore. She knew what she wanted. He was standing in front of her, all six foot plus of rugged cowboy. Who knew she
liked cowboys?

  While she was lost in thought, Egan opened a can of dog food and fed Pete. Afterward he pulled ham, cheese and grapes out of the refrigerator and then grabbed crackers from the pantry. He placed everything on the bar.

  “Oh. What would you like to drink?”

  “What do you have?”

  He studied the contents of the refrigerator. “Water, milk, beer or tea.”

  “Tea will be fine.”

  She watched him eat as she sipped iced tea. “I guess you heard Izzy’s out on bail.”

  “Yeah.” Egan loaded ham and cheese onto a cracker. “Figured the McCrays would get him out until the trial.”

  “Mmm.” She snagged a grape. “Is that all you’re going to eat after a full day’s work?”

  Slicing a piece of cheese from the wedge of cheddar, he replied, “I don’t feel like cooking and I’m not that hungry. Quincy usually has something going in the kitchen, but he’s out tonight.”

  “So you have some sort of system here?”

  “Well—” Egan popped a few grapes into his mouth “—sort of. Quincy and I do the work and then we yell at Elias for slacking off. It seems to balance out.”

  They carried their tea into the living room. Pete barked at the door and Egan let him out. Rachel curled up in a corner of the sofa and he sat beside her, propping his feet on the coffee table. A lot of boot marks were visible there. Obviously, it was a habit of the Rebel men. But today Egan’s feet were bare.

  Rachel laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your feet are so white.”

  He wiggled his toes. “They spend most of the time in my boots.”

  “Have you ever been to the beach?”

  He placed his tea glass on the table and rested his head against the sofa. “Sure. Lots of times, but I prefer it here.”

  She relaxed and for the first time today felt at peace with what had happened. She could now move forward. This house had a relaxing feel to it, as if a lot of love had been shared here. Earlier, when she’d first arrived, she’d had the feeling that Egan was going to ask her to leave. He was different now.

  “Why are you not telling me to go away?”